Overseen by an advisory group convened by the cinema companies and on which Media Access Australia sits, the plan is the only one of its kind in the world.
The move to digital cinema is a major change to the industry across the world. The delivery methods for movies are changing frequently and cinemas and film distributors are still coming to terms with accessing movie files in different formats. This all means that it is a very fluid situation and this is having a direct impact on access issues including the options available to show captions in an open format.
Captioning of sport has lagged behind other types of TV, and while the amount of captioned sport coverage is now on the rise, there are a number of factors which make the logistics of delivering sports captions a unique challenge for broadcasters.
Hearing Jennifer Wardle speak, I think of elocution lessons and people walking with books on their heads. Australians usually blend their words, adding vowel sounds between words to form a continuous flow. Wardle’s voice, on the other hand, is clear and clean.
“On competition days, Nine will deliver 14.5 hours of continuous live coverage with closed captions from 6.30pm until 9.00am the following morning on London Live,” said a Nine spokesperson. “Then from 9.00am to 11.00am each morning, you can see all the day’s highlights in London Gold, which will be replayed from 4.00pm-6.00pm every afternoon. London Gold will also be captioned.”
